Chapter 3 - THE MEN WHO CAME BEFORE MIDNIGHT|
By the time we reached Taylor Street, the restaurant's front door was hanging open.
An unfamiliar white truck sat against the curb.
Two men in work jackets were carrying metal shelving through the entrance.
A third was fastening a chain around the handles.
Mrs. Caruso made a sound I will never forget.
It wasn't quite a scream.
It sounded like someone discovering that a piece of her own body had been stolen.
“My restaurant.”
Luca stepped out of the black SUV before Marco could open his door.
“Stop.”
The men turned.
One of them, a heavyset man with a shaved head, looked annoyed.
“Private property, buddy.”
Luca walked closer.
“I know.”
The man pointed toward a notice taped beside the entrance.
“Building's being cleared for redevelopment.”
“Who authorized you?”
“Our supervisor.”
“Name.”
The man frowned.
“Listen, we're just doing our jobs.”
Luca pulled out his phone.
“Then give me the name of the person who hired you.”
Something in his expression finally registered.
The worker's eyes widened.
“Wait.”
He looked toward the SUV.
“Are you Moretti?”
“Yes.”
The man stepped backward.
“We were told you approved everything.”
Luca looked at the chain.
“Take it off.”
“Sir, our instructions—”
“Your instructions came from people who had no right to give them.”
Marco approached with his phone already against his ear.
“Legal is checking the work order.”
The workers exchanged glances.
Then the youngest man removed the chain.
Mrs. Caruso hurried inside.
I followed her.
The little restaurant smelled of garlic, old wood, and something sour that hadn't belonged there before.
Several tables had been overturned.
Framed photographs lay facedown on the floor.
Someone had pulled open the kitchen drawers and scattered utensils across the counters.
A ceramic bowl had shattered near the register.
Mrs. Caruso stopped beside the wall.
There was an empty space where a photograph had hung.
I knew the picture.
It showed a younger Mrs. Caruso beside her husband, Salvatore, on the day they opened the restaurant in 1978.
Someone had taken it down and broken the frame.
She knelt slowly.
“Oh, Sal.”
I crouched beside her.
“Let's get you a chair.”
She shook her head.
“That was our first day.”
Her voice grew smaller.
“We didn't even have enough money for matching plates.”
She lifted the cracked photograph.
“Luca's father came in with a bag of groceries and told us nobody deserved to open a restaurant with an empty pantry.”
I looked toward the doorway.
Luca had entered without making a sound.
He stared at the picture in her hands.
“Dad never told me that.”
Mrs. Caruso smiled sadly.
“Your father didn't tell people every good thing he did.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Luca noticed the open drawers.
“Why were they searching the kitchen?”
The youngest worker answered from the doorway.
“Looking for inventory.”
Marco appeared beside him.
“Inventory doesn't usually require opening the underside of a cash register.”
The worker turned pale.
“I don't know anything about that.”
Luca studied him.
“Who told you to search?”
“We got a list.”
“From whom?”
The man hesitated.
Marco stepped closer.
“You can answer him now, or explain it to the police when they arrive.”
The worker reached into his pocket and produced a folded sheet.
Luca read it.
His expression darkened.
“Remove all registers, handwritten books, and personal files.”
Mrs. Caruso made another small, frightened sound.
I looked around the kitchen.
A flour tin sat open on the counter.
Several recipe cards were scattered beside it.
One drawer had been pulled completely out.
“Mrs. Caruso?”
She turned toward me.
“Where do you keep your recipes?”
“In the cabinet above the stove.”
I opened it.
The shelves were nearly empty.
A jar of dried oregano lay on its side.
A yellowed notebook rested beneath a stack of plastic containers.
Its first pages had been torn out.
Mrs. Caruso reached for it.
“That belonged to my husband.”
I handed it over.
She turned the pages carefully.
“Sal wrote everything down.”
“Recipes?” I asked.
“Recipes, expenses, birthdays, debts.”
Her smile vanished.
“He said paper remembered things people were afraid to say out loud.”
Luca moved closer.
“What debts?”
Mrs. Caruso looked at him.
“Things from a long time ago.”
“Teresa.”
She closed the notebook.
“Your father used to come here when he needed somewhere quiet to think.”
I watched Luca's expression change.
“He brought papers sometimes.”
“What papers?”
“I never asked.”
She hesitated.
“Sal said there were things in those papers that could hurt powerful people.”
Marco looked toward the broken drawers.
“Somebody was looking for them.”
Mrs. Caruso nodded slowly.
“I think so.”
A cold feeling settled in my stomach.
The people who had come to change the locks weren't simply trying to empty the building.
They were searching for something.
Luca looked around the kitchen.
“Did Sal leave those papers here?”
“I don't know.”
Mrs. Caruso clutched the notebook.
“After your father died, Sal became frightened.”
“Of whom?”
She shook her head.
“Men who came asking questions.”
“About my father?”
“Yes.”
Luca closed his eyes for a moment.
His father, Antonio Moretti, had died in a highway crash eighteen years earlier.
Every newspaper in Chicago had described it as a tragic accident.
I knew because the photograph of his funeral had been framed in Luca's private study.
When he opened his eyes again, they were colder.
“Marco, photograph everything.”
His security chief nodded.
“And make sure nobody removes another item.”
Outside, a car engine started.
The workers were leaving.
I moved toward the counter to collect the scattered recipe cards.
That was when I noticed something beneath the old flour tin.
A torn piece of yellow paper.
On it, someone had written three words in faded blue ink.
THE BLUE TILE.
Below the words was a date.
October 17, 2008.
I stared at it.
Antonio Moretti had died on October 18, 2008.
The note was dated one day before his death.
I showed it to Luca.
He read the words without speaking.
Then Mrs. Caruso saw the paper.
All the color drained from her face.
“Where did you find that?”
“Under the flour tin.”
She reached for the wooden spoon she had carried from the mansion.
For the first time, I noticed a tiny brass cap set into the end of its handle.
“Sal told me never to lose this,” she whispered.
Luca looked from the spoon to the note.
“Teresa, what is the blue tile?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I hoped I'd never have to explain.”
Before she could say anything else, Marco's phone rang.
He listened for several seconds.
Then he turned toward Luca.
“I finally reached Daniel Voss.”
Luca waited.
Marco's expression was grim.
“He says the acquisition was approved using your electronic authorization.”
“I didn't authorize it.”
“There's more.”
Marco glanced at Mrs. Caruso.
“The approval was submitted from the private office inside your house.”
He looked at me next.
“And the system says it happened last Thursday.”
Last Thursday.
I remembered that night.
Vanessa had sent the entire housekeeping staff home two hours early.
Except me.
May you like
She had ordered me to clean Luca's private office.
And when I arrived, the door was already unlocked.
